


For Billy

by OurLadyofPerpetualWallflowers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Playlist prompt, Sad, Unhappy Ending, no seriously this is really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:44:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16079657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OurLadyofPerpetualWallflowers/pseuds/OurLadyofPerpetualWallflowers
Summary: Inspired by the song ‘For Billy’ by Highly Suspect. Steve remembers.





	For Billy

**Author's Note:**

> I posted a link to my Harringrove playlist over on tumblr and this was requested by @ihni. Inspired by the song ‘For Billy’ by Highly Suspect. I’m sorry to everybody. This is sad. Please heed the tags.

Thirty years after the fact, the sign still stands.

A beat up wooden post with a California license plate nailed to it.

The kids who come up here nowadays don’t know why it’s there anymore, too many years gone by, too much time passed. It’s just a novelty now, the memory behind it long gone.

Steve walks slowly towards the edge of the lake and rests a weathered hand on the battered metal, traces his fingers over the raised letters, brushes away the dirt. Everyone else may have forgotten but he remembers it perfectly.

Thirty years ago today.

There was a party at the lake. End of summer bash. Tommy and Dave and the usual gang all fired up and Billy right there in the middle, forever seventeen in Steve’s mind.

He remembers the taste of warm beer, the smell of somebody’s weed. Remembers the way Billy had been picking fights all night, challenging anybody to anything. Keg stands, jello shots, arm wrestling, foot races. Like he was holding a one-man Olympics.

Steve had been torn between boredom and annoyance when Billy’s gaze had landed on him like a weight. Cue the taunting, the heated words thrown between the two of them, Billy getting up in his face and Steve planting his feet. Billy had dared him to a dozen things before something caught his eye.

The cliff.

Billy threw down a gauntlet. Steve laughed in his face.

He can still hear the stupid crowd cheering Billy on, chanting his name like a prayer as he scrambled to the top and stripped off his shirt and shoes. That final image is burned into Steve’s brain forever: Billy at the top of the cliff, golden in the full moonlight, alive and smiling and still somehow broken open. How had he missed it that night? The pain and despair shining out of those eyes. The dark bruise on his chest. The shallow cuts on his wrist.

Tommy and Steve had pulled him out. Carol had pounded on his chest. Nancy had radioed Hopper.

Thirty years ago today.

Steve presses his fingertips to his lips. Runs them over the letters he’d carved into the post.

_For Billy._


End file.
